So…a rather wonderful thing happened to me yesterday.

A thread.

I work in recruitment. I am a recruiter. Boo hiss. I know you all hate us. Well, do you know what? I worked out years ago that I can’t change anyone's perception of the sector. All I can do is focus on doing the right things and to make my business as good as it can be.

When the virus struck we spent the first few weeks having to have honest conversation with suppliers we had worked with for years, effectively furloughing them. It was really hard, it affects their livelihoods too.

We then spent two weeks helping http://harri.com  ( @Roartalent et al) launch their #hospitalityunite website. And I even somehow ended up on BBC News. Since then it’s been a whirlwind of cash flow forecasts, furlough, checking people I know and love (work and home) are ok…

Zoom calls, home schooling, exercise, drinking fizzy wine, and trying to work out what we could do to come out of this in tact and possibly find a way to trade through. We do 90-odd % of all we do in hospitality. It’s fair to say that we don’t have a lot of work currently.

Yesterday, I was just finishing my 4th couch to 5k run when my phone went. Someone calling I have known for a looooong time, both as candidate, client, but really a friend. Someone I presumed was just checking in. We had a (mildly breathless at the start - I’m still unfit) natter

They’d recently started in a new role as an HR Director back in the UK. It turns out that they’d decided to hire someone I introduced to them a couple of years back when both candidate and client were at different companies. So much so usual I hear you say.

The candidate is also a friend, someone I have known and worked with for years. I happened to know they were being made redundant so my heart absolutely swelled. Two great people, who couldn’t quite make it work before being able to work together, even in the teeth of COVID-19.

Here’s the kicker though. The client asked me to invoice them for the introduction. Completely out of the blue, completely unexpected but such an incredibly kind things to do. Technically, as all recruiters will know this happens all the time. It’s part of life’s ups and downs.

But that small act of kindness, of ringing me up and offering to do that, completely unnecessarily, but with such thought and kindness brought me to tears.

I am pretty certain it’s the first time I have ever cried whilst speaking to a client…how utterly mortifying.

It was such a kind thing to do, and it felt like a ‘we’re all in this together’. It felt like a way to help the business for all the good we’ve been doing.

Or at least trying to do (!). It made me really think about keeping trying to do the right thing and good things will happen back to you.

Such a small gesture really touched me and has made such a difference.

I’m not great with words and I’d love to sum this up with something clever about small suppliers still being there after all of this. It seems so trite though when nearly every business I know and love is suffering unbearable pain. It did give me real hope though...

Hope that we will all get through this, hope that there is a light on the other side. And it gave me a realisation that there are good, in fact - great people out there.

Be kind people, it makes such a difference.

> Ends.

[As an addendum (as reading through I may have missed the key point). The client that called was in no way obligated to *even let me know* they’d hired the person, let alone do anything financially. The fact they wanted to meant everything. So so kind]